A group of producers helped Rob Harms harvest 500 acres of soybeans
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A group of farmers from a rural Manitoba community helped a fellow producer finish his grain harvest.
A total of 18 volunteers brought six combines, three grain carts, three tandem trucks and three semis to Rob Harms’s farm in Snowflake, Man.
Together, along with Harms and his combine, the group harvested 500 acres of soybeans in just under five hours instead of five or six days.
“Anybody in agriculture knows farmers are a tight-knit group and that it’s one of the great things about agriculture. We’ve also got a pretty strong faith in our family,” Harms told Farms.com.
“When you combine those two, some pretty amazing things can happen. Some of the guys we go to church with got together and wanted to help.”
The community support came after Harms received a telephone call on the evening of Sept. 30.
His daugher Morgan, who was 16-years-old at the time, who was away at a private Christian school near Gretna, didn’t return to the school’s residence after going out for a run, and people were looking for her.
Morgan Harms/Torirae Photos
“It’s the worst phone call a parent can get,” Harms said. “My wife was packed and out the door within minutes and stayed with (Morgan) all week. I visited her once while staying at the farm and with our other children.”
Morgan went out for her run around 8:30 that evening on Pieper Ave. in Gretna. The search party found her walking on the road around 10:30 p.m. and discovered she was the victim of a hit-and-run collision. An ambulance took her to a hospital in Altona before she was transferred to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.
Morgan, who has since turned 17, was discharged from the hospital on Oct. 8 with a concussion and is now on the road to recovery.
“She’s got some head trauma injuries we’re working through,” he said. “But she knows everybody, and her short-term and long-term memory are still pretty good. She’s doing remarkably well for what she went through.”
Harms shared the story of community support on social media.
His Oct. 7 tweet has been liked almost 60,000 times, has around 5,000 retweets almost 900 comments, including some from the U.S. and abroad.
The RCMP is still investigating the incident.
The police are looking for a silver crossover-style SUV or minivan with narrow tail lights that wrap around the side of the vehicle, the RCMP said in a release.
The vehicle could have visible damage to the passenger-side front bumper.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Carman RCMP at 204-745-6760.
Rob Harms photo